Gram - SEAS

94 4 Pragmatic factors
4.5 Pragmatic enrichment versus "bleach ing"
From very early times researchers on issues related to grammaticalization
have observed that it involves loss of semantic content. Th is has been described
by the metaphor of "fading" or "bleaching" (Gabelentz spoke of "verbleichen"
'to grow pale,' Meillet of "affaiblissement" 'weakening'). More recently, Hl!l e_
and Reh characterized grammaticalization as: "an evolution whereby linguistic
units lose in semantic complex ity, pragmatic significance, syntactic freedom, and
phonetic substance" (Heine and Reh 1984: 15). Readers will have noted that in
this chapter we have, however, spoken of pragmatic enrichment, strengthening,
and so forth. Th is is because we have been discussing the beginnings of grammaticalization,
that is, the motivations that permit the process to begin, rather than its
outcomes. There is no doubt that, over time, meanings tend to become weakened
during the process of grammaticalization. Nevertheless, all the evidence for early
stages is that initially there is a redistribution or shift, not a loss, of meaning.
For example, with reference to the development of future go, Sweetser says:
"we lose the sense of physical motion (together with all its likely background
inferences). We gain, however, a new meaning of future prediction or intention -
together with its likely background inferences" (Sweetser 1988: 392). In speaking
of the subjectification of be going to, Langacker draws attention to the loss of
objective locational reference points that movement entails, and suggests that this
loss is replaced by realignment to the speaker's temporal perspective (1990: 23).
In other words, one meaning is demoted, another promoted.
As grammaticalized forms become increasingly syntacticized or morphologized
they unquestionably cease over time to carry significant semantic or pragmatic
meaning. This can most clearly be seen when former lexical items become empty
syntactic clements, as in the·case of do, or when formerly separate morphemes become
bound and serve primarily as "morphological detritus" after repeated fusion
(sec Chapter 6). An excellent example is provided by the development of French
ra 'that,' a form which is the worn-down relic of several stages of expressive
reinforcement:
(30) hoc 'that' > (ecce) hoc 'behold that' > eccehoc > ,,0 > ce > ce(lli) 'thut
there' > celli > .. a (LUdtke 1980: 212)
The individual meanings of hoc, ecce, and La have been lost, as has the form's
distal demonstrative fu nction (M. Harris 1978: Chapter 4).
Two general working principles arise out of our understanding of the processes
of inferencing in grammaticalization. One is that the meanings will always be
derivable from the original lexical meaning by either metaphorical or conceptual
metonymic inferencing. Therefore meaning changes in grammaticalization are not